Reverse-Cowgirl Diplomacy

Fate, Elissa thought bitterly, was a cruel bitch.

No, that didn't do it justice. Fate was a seed-swilling, gutter-dwelling, pox-ridden whore with gloopy, rancid rivers of spunk spewing from her putrid, gaping cunt.

Bad enough that she managed to successfully add a giant to her entourage at a time when she was so injured and sore that not only was she unable to fuck him, she didn't even particularly want to at present. At least that wouldn't last. True, for now, all she could do was covertly admire the Qunari, Sten, with something approaching academic intrigue, but that would change as she healed.

No, where Fate really revealed the depths of her depravity was in the fact that she, Lady Elissa Cousland, aspiring queen, had lost the king who had been poised to elevate her to the throne only to discover she had conceived his child.

The pair of them should have been the queen mother and heir to the throne. Instead they were merely a fallen noblewoman with a questionable family reputation--not to mention a price on her head--and a royal bastard.

She would have laughed had she not been so busy puking on the roots of a tree at the edge of the clearing where they'd made their camp the previous night.

Leliana was approaching with a waterskin and a cup, while behind her, Elissa could see Alistair craning his neck in her direction, a concerned expression on his face. Elissa thought she must be delirious from the insane combination of ravenous hunger and inability to keep any food down, because that frown--right there, that beetling of his eyebrows--made him look eerily like Cailan when he'd stared at her in concern after ravishing her that first night.

Madness. Utter madness.

"There," Leliana's sweet, lilting voice crooned soothingly. "I've brought you some water to rinse your mouth, and a heel of bread if you think you can nibble it. It may help calm your stomach."

"How did you know?" Elissa gurgled, struggling to hold back another retch.

"One year, Lady Cecile's niece came to stay with her at her estate out in the country. To hide her condition from the rest of the nobility, you see. I often helped her when she was sick and learned to recognize the signs."

Elissa sighed as the urge began to pass. "I see. And what happened to Lady Cecile's niece and her babe?"

"As winter approached, she gave birth to a beautiful little girl, who was given to a kind and wealthy, but childless, merchant and his wife--friends of Lady Cecile's--to raise as their own. Lady Cecile's niece went back to Val Royeaux and married soon thereafter with no hint of scandal."

"How fortunate for her. I no longer have any friends or allies in a position to help me conceal my condition."

"You may not be able to conceal your condition, but you do have friends and allies," Leliana said firmly. "And we shall help you as best we can, yes? You are an archer, so your condition should not encumber you in battle too badly. And once the baby is born, if you don't want to give him to the chantry, we shall help you care for him. Even if it means staying here in camp to take care of him while you travel as necessary. Er, assuming, that is, that you have no plans to end your pregnancy?"

Did she? The idea had occurred to her. Her mother had instructed her on how to avoid or end an inconvenient pregnancy as thoroughly as she had on any of the sensual arts, and yet....

...Bastard or not, her child was the last of the Theirin dynasty. She no longer had any hope of becoming queen, but it would be a tragedy to let the bloodline die out entirely. And once she dealt with Loghain's usurpation of the throne, she could see about winning her child back some of his birthright.

"No," Elissa said, able to inject some resolve into her voice as her stomach began to calm. Nibbling on the bread was helping after all. So long as she avoided the smoke from the campfire and the odor of whatever it was Alistair was attempting to cook, she might just be all right. "I won't be doing that."

"Oh, good!" Leliana looked delighted. "I was hoping you'd say that. Not that I wouldn't understand if you'd chosen otherwise, of course. After what those men did, I don't know if I would be able to bear such a reminder, myself."

"Those men?" Elissa stared blankly for a moment, then said in horror, "Oh, Maker's blood, no! It wasn't them. I was actually having some signs even before...all that."

"Oh!" Leliana gasped in relief.

"Quite. I'm rather amazed that I've come this far, between the Joining and what happened in Lothering."

"Who--No, I'm sorry, it's not really my business."

Elissa closed her eyes, feeling another pang of grief for all that had gone wrong, and just how close she'd come to having it all work out perfectly. "It doesn't matter," she said at last, setting her shoulders. "He's gone now."

Elissa felt the unaccustomed burn of tears in her eyes and wondered at herself. Surely it was due to the child in her womb. Not since the night her parents died had she cried; she had always been rather proud of her lack of sentimentality. Since the night everything had come undone at Ostagar, her primary emotion had been fury. Fury over Loghain's betrayal, fury over the wreck of her plans and dreams, fury over the loss of so very many lives--many of which had been the contingent of soldiers Fergus had brought south from Highever, troops she had known and with whom she had trained. It incensed her that one man, one act, was able to lay waste to so much with so little effort.

That that fury had spent itself that day in Lothering, though, and now....

Now she felt a hollow, aching grief over all that had been lost. Cailan. Kind, impetuous, foolish, vainglorious Cailan. Duncan, wise, dangerous, unflinchingly pragmatic. Ser Jory. Daveth. The knights and soldiers of Highever. All of them just...wasted. And all for the sake of one man's paranoia and ambition.

"Ostagar?" Leliana inquired when Elissa looked at her again, her eyes shimmering with tears.

"Yes." That one word, choked and hoarse, was all Elissa would say on the subject.


*****


Thankfully, by the time they reached Redcliffe Elissa's injuries obtained in Lothering had healed, courtesy of a great many healing potions. She was grateful; her bruised face and limp would not have been likely to inspire a great deal of confidence in Arl Eamon or the troops he might offer to her cause.

Alistair was finally beginning to behave normally around her. Admittedly, she hadn't been very gracious with him after the events of Lothering. Despite her attempts to downplay it, he quickly caught on to the fact that she had been raped, and he'd been horrified. His was the one response she'd been in no humor to deal with, that dithering and solicitous concern, as she limped out of the village while aching and covered in bruises.

"Do you think I've never been fucked before?" she snapped at him when he made what felt like his fiftieth inquiry into her well-being.

His eyes were wide and startled as he stammered for a reply, uncertain how to placate her. "Judging from your response, I suppose not," he finally muttered.

"It's all a matter of degrees, then, isn't it?" she continued, a hysterical, volatile edge to her voice that she hated. "It's nothing I've not experienced before, to some degree or another. I'm no chaste damsel needing rescue or comfort or coddling. I went with those soldiers, knowing full-well what they would likely do, because it was better than being outnumbered and killed in a crowded tavern where other people might be hurt. I went with them because it put me in a better position to gain the advantage against them when the opportunity arose. I took a hopeless situation and turned it to victory." She subsided with a shudder and chose to say nothing of the catharsis she'd sought, the reason she'd allowed it to go on so long when she might have gotten the upper hand earlier had she attempted it. "If you make it out that I've been somehow irretrievably broken by it, or make me out to be some fragile, traumatized victim, then you take that victory from me, and I will not have that!"

He avoided her for some time after that, and been coolly impersonal for longer still.

The truth was, Alistair was something of an enigma.

Since the day her body had announced its ascent to womanhood, she'd been taught to relate to others using sex. It was a powerful weapon and one she wielded expertly. It could insure a successful conclusion to diplomatic negotiations where there might otherwise have been an impasse. It could prove a useful distraction when one didn't want another inquiring too deeply into other matters. It could ease tensions and encourage open communication where there might have been reticence. It could placate an adversary, win one goodwill and preferential treatment from an ally, or serve as currency where there existed no interest in money.

Or, as she'd proven in Lothering, it could distract an enemy long enough for her to make her move.

Elissa unquestionably had a preference for men, but she'd been taught how to please and respond to women as well and could find their company pleasant in the right circumstances. Women, however, often tended to be less easily swayed from their purpose by sexual considerations than were men, particularly those who had no interest in other women. Accordingly, dealing with men had been Elissa's forte.

Her instruction had left her utterly bewildered as to how to deal with Alistair.

Sex clearly was not the way in with him. Not that he was uninterested; he most certainly was, if his oddly charming attempts at flirtation were any indication. But he was more comfortable and responsive when sex was not in play. He quickly retreated if she became too aggressive with him, and not in a way that indicated he could be coaxed out of his reluctance. He grew genuinely irritated when pressed too hard.

As she found out the night she invited him to her tent. She wasn't sure exactly why she did it, except that now that she had healed she felt the need for a catharsis of a different sort, a softer, gentler fucking from a good and kind man to wash away the brutality of that day in Lothering. That he happened to remind her occasionally of Cailan had probably also been a factor. When she wasn't hearing the archdemon in her nightmares, she frequently had erotic dreams in which she confused and interchanged Cailan and Alistair. Sometimes it was Alistair who pinned her to a luxurious bed in a graciously appointed pavilion and rent her virginity amidst her contrived protests, or it was Cailan who slyly asked if she'd ever licked a lamppost in winter when she teased him about being a virgin.

She'd stared after him in stunned disbelief as he stammered an awkward refusal and ducked into his tent alone. When she'd offered again the next night, certain he must regret his decision, he'd snapped at her and stalked away angrily.

She hadn't asked again after that.

Finally he began to speak to her again, to answer her questions about the Grey Wardens and some of his own history, and as they came down the road into Redcliffe, some level of comfortable camaraderie had been achieved between them. It was a good thing, too, for Redcliffe proved more of a challenge than she could ever have dreamed. Here she found problems she couldn't solve with sex. She wasn't about to proposition a drunken old man half out of his mind with worry about his daughter. Some perverse sense of curiosity did, however, compel her to issue a half-hearted invitation to the dwarf, Dwyn, in exchange for defending the village. He'd given her a lustful perusal and then apparently decided she wasn't worth dying for.

Andraste's tits, she seethed as she stalked from his dingy waterfront shack, having finally acquired his cooperation in exchange for exerting some influence on his behalf with Bann Teagan and Arl Eamon to get his taxes and duties decreased. If this continues, I may as well make my vows of celibacy to the Chantry and have done with the business of being a seductress. I'll be a sister by my seventeenth name day.

It didn't help matters that Morrigan and Sten were both making surly remarks about her propensity for wasting time helping people, requiring her to waste time and patience explaining to them the necessity for her actions.

Thankfully, they were both placated when she strong-armed the craven barkeep at the tavern into defending the village. Offering him sex was never an option; she'd be burned alive on Andraste's own pyre before she'd offer herself to that louse to get him off his cowardly ass and out into the village where he'd do some good. Once he was gone, the tavern wench, Bella, was more than happy to comply with her request to serve the militia free ale, and their obvious joy at such a simple pleasure made her stop and wonder....

Everywhere she'd gone through the village that day, the refrain had been the same: We won't survive the night. No matter how much aid she offered to lend, no one seemed to believe it possible to defeat the menace coming from the castle. Their morale needed a lift, something with more weight than sweet reassurances.

"Wait for me outside," she told her companions. "I have a few words I need to speak with these men."

When the door had closed behind Alistair, she stood in the middle of the tavern and began to unbuckle her cuirass. The effect was immediate. All chatter and grousing ceased, tankards were lowered, and all eyes were upon her, including Bella's.

"What in the Maker's name are you doing?" Bella hissed.

"I'm going to give these men a reason to survive," she replied softly. She stripped off her armor and then her breastband, and stood before them in only her smallclothes and boots. Her breasts, heavier than they had been only a few weeks ago, swayed as she turned around before them, allowing them to view her front and back. The tavern was silent except for the occasional gasp.

Before their eyes, she ran her hands down her torso, cupped her breasts, softly pinched her nipples until they rose to tight peaks.

"Gentlemen," she purred. "It has come to my attention that many of you don't believe you're going to survive the night. If I believed that were true, I'd spread myself on this table here this very instant and send you to your deaths with a last fuck to comfort you. But I'm not going to do that. Not today."

"Tomorrow, however, after the battle is won, I will be back here in this tavern, on this table. And any member of the militia who survives the fight is more than welcome to join me there, if you so desire. Except, of course, for that stinking swine, Lloyd."

The cheer that rose through the tavern was thunderous. It shook the dust from the rafters. Tankards banged on the table enthusiastically as the men took up the chant, "War-den! War-den! War-den!"

Smiling, Elissa began to gather her armor. After a moment, Bella came over to help, an astonished and perplexed grin on her face.

"I suspect you're going to be a very busy woman tomorrow," Bella murmured.

"Maker willing," Elissa conceded.

"It seems I've spent every day of my life trying to avoid these men's grasping paws, but you...I could almost envy you."

"You could always join me."

"On the table?"

"It would make my work much easier. And give the men something else to look forward to. And it would give you an opportunity to claim ownership over yourself, put the decision as to whose hands get to grope you under your control."

"Hmm, that's a thought. But I have to live here among these men once you're gone, and that could prove...awkward. Especially if any of the ones with jealous wives decide to accept your offer." Bella pursed her lips thoughtfully. "But maybe I can contribute something...."

"Gentlemen!" Bella shouted over the lively din that had filled the tavern after the chanting died down. "Just a little something to keep you going until tomorrow...."

With a wicked smile, she leaned in and kissed Elissa full on the lips before the gawking militiamen. For a moment, Elissa simply smiled, and then she wrapped her arms around Bella and began to return the kiss, parting the woman's incredibly soft lips with her tongue. Bella's hands came up between their bodies and began kneading Elissa's breasts with soft, sensual strokes that soon had Elissa humming into her mouth with pleasure. Another deafening round of chants shook the rough wooden walls, this time for Bella.

The tavern wench broke the kiss, blushing madly and laughing, her lips puffy and her eyes sparkling with good humor. "Stay safe, Warden," she murmured, and helped Elissa don her armor.
"What was that about?" Alistair asked as she emerged from the tavern. The afternoon breeze off Lake Calenhad cooled her flushed cheeks, but her heart was light, content despite everything.

"Nothing," she murmured, "Just an encouraging speech for the militia."